A figure of purpose enters past rusty wire stands of wilted vegetables and blackening bananas and among the blacks who block the doorway drinking cans of sweet drinks or waiting dreamily to buy. The middle-aged Indian and his son have noticed at once, he produces a kind of alert; but perhaps that is only because he is such a large man, white, a head above every head; a sticky piccanin is staring in fascination at the level of his knee. They are affable as only shop-keeping Jews and Indians are. It’s as if they expected him. They’ve forgiven him; he made some social blunder that nobody’s going to mention. They knew he would come back some time; they can’t be dispensed with.
— I got something very nice. This is what all the boys buy. They like. You’ll see. -
The denim trousers are so stiff the garments could stand alone. They have ‘Lone Ranger’ or ‘Deputy Sheriff’, a choice of legend, embroidered between two star-shaped studs on a back pocket. But he can’t see Jacobus as a movie hero. — Now something for the older boys. —
— This’s the right thing. First quality polyester, no-iron. Nice colours, very nice colours. That’s what they like. Let me tell you. —
— How much? —
— Oh it’s cheap. It’s not expensive. -
— How much? And the pants? —
— Don’t worry, we give you a good price, you know that —
The purchase is a large one, and the plump son with the liquid eyes heavy with good-nature or laughter or last night’s sex has dropped what he was doing and father and son are energetically folding and stacking garments to make a neat parcel. The father hustles spectacularly — No, no man, that’s no good, get one of the big sheets from inside there — no, put that shirt here, look what you do to the collar! — There you are. Try that, sir. Is that okay? You sure? Just don’t carry on the string, eh, I don’t want the paper to tear and everything falls — wait — Dawood! What about one of those shirt boxes, man- No, that’ll do fine. —
— He’ll take it to the car for you. Dawood —
— Give here, it’s perfect. —
They are beaming at him. Except the old man who sits as always, not dead yet, and looks through him and the blacks as if all are the same to him, or are not there at all. His gaze meets the old man’s and nobody sees; a chink in the eye of a blind man.
— Compliments of the season to you. If you need anything, we open right through to seven tonight. I suppose we be greeting the young gentleman over the holidays. Oh that’s a nice boy. And he like the Indian foods, you know! Tell him he must come —
Yes, yes, he’ll tell him, thank you, thank you.
They beat a dog at the compound on Christmas Day. He lies down there and hears it. He’s given them their pair of trousers or shirt each (ten per cent discount from the Indians’) and the beer and hunk of meat Jacobus was deputed to buy; probably that’s what the dog’s got at: the meat. The bellowing howls die to squeals and whimpers and then it’s started again. He cannot not hear it. They’ve got no bloody feeling for animals. Well, if the cur had had any sense; they’d murder for meat. There is no such thing as a continuous cry of pain, eh; interesting. Man or beast, there has to be a stop for breath although the pain doesn’t cease. Unless it is that pain is transmitted in waves or pulsations or whatever you call it — back to the brain from the spot where it’s being inflicted, back from the brain to the place where the sjambok’s cut or the boot’s landing. They should be stopped. They shouldn’t keep those dogs. But you can’t get through over things like that. — What dogs? Is only one small dogs, he doesn’t know to chase the birds — grinning on brown-necked teeth. You can’t get through. You are right, reading the cards on the table; charity’s a waste of time, towards man or beast, it only patches up a little bit of pain here and there. If it were as easy as that! If I stop them hitting it now that won’t stop them doing it again when I’m not here. Everything needs changing. Don’t you realize, if you were here these days they wouldn’t want to have you on their side, they’d want you to be a white bitch. It makes things clearer all round. If you had any sense in that intelligent head of yours, you’d know that’s how you had to end up. There isn’t anything else they need from you.
The howls have throbbed themselves out and sunk away into the peace. This place absorbs everything, takes everything to itself and loses everything in itself. It’s innocent. The pulse, the rhythm now is a coming and going of flights of birds just after sunset. The oceanic swaying of layers of boughs and swathes has stopped; the force of gravity sinks everything that is of the earth to the earth, chained to a ball of molten ore that has rolled over the dark side. All the weight of his life is taken by the tree at his back. Swallows are a flick of dark flying droplets. From the far curve of the sky, finches; they spring up and down in and out of the line of their formation as they go. Darts of doves aim at some objective of their own. Like showers of sparks, birds explode into his sky, and — a change of focus — close to his eyes gnats are raised and lowered, stately, as they hover in their swarm on strings of air. He feels (see him in her crystal ball and have a good laugh if she likes) almost some kind of companionship in the atmosphere. You predicted it — right — you are so clever, your kind, you always know the phrase: — The famous indifference of nature really sends people like you, doesn’t it — it’s the romanticism of your realpolitik, the sentimentalism of cut-throat competitors —
But for all the brown-titted warmth and revolutionary humanity you exude, you fastened the seat-belt and left them all behind.
Tracing his consciousness as an ant’s progress is alive from point to point where it is clambering over the hairs of his forearm, he knows he is not the only one down at the reeds. He doesn’t think of him, one of them lying somewhere here, any more than one thinks consciously of anyone who is always in one’s presence about the house, breathing in the same rooms. Sometimes there arises the need to speak; sometimes there are long silences. He feels at this particular moment a kind of curiosity that is in itself a question: from one who has nothing to say to one to whom there is nothing to say. Falling asleep there he was not alone face-down in the grass. There are kinds of companionship unsought. With nature. Nature accepts everything. Bones, hair, teeth, fingernails and the beaks of birds — the ants carry away the last fragment of flesh, small as a fibre of meat stuck in a back tooth, nothing is wasted.
In the harbour of the summer night the city rides lit-up at anchor across the veld. The telephone answering device waits to provide his only conversation. It’s Barbara, darling. Where on earth are you hiding yourself? Seton and I want to have some people over for New Year’s Eve, just a small thing, not a great lush-up. But we can’t imagine it without you. I mean, we really do want to know if you’re going to come? I’ve phoned umpteen times.
This is Mr André Boyars’ secretary speaking. Mr Boyars would like Mr Mehring to come to Sunday brunch to meet Mr and Mrs David Lindley-Brown, of
Does this thing really work, Mehring, or am I shouting down the wind… look, Caroline and I want to make up a foursome to sail with Blakey Thompson to the Comores early in January. How does that strike you? He’s refitted his yacht and he’s got all the info, but we both feel, good chap though Blakey is, we couldn’t take him unadulterated all the way across the Indian Ocean — Caroline’s interrupting, she says it’s up the Mozambique Channel, to be precise…
I’m getting a coloured band Jan’s dug up. The girl at your office said she didn’t think you’d be back in time, but it’d be so lovely if you could just make it… it’s going to be enormous, keep thinking of more people I can’t do without — you know how I am —